The Step by Step Guide for Creating Your Own Zen X-Fi Theme

A few months ago, some modders and hackers found a way to dismantle Creative’s firmware for the Vision:M. Since Creative’s firmware is relatively similar across all the players, it was only a few steps to dismantling the same process on other Creative players. The X-Fi is fairly new, though, so some of the softwares weren’t quite properly made. However, it’s still fairly easy to create your own themes. If you already have a theme that someone has made, skip down to the “Sending the File to the Zen X-Fi” section.

Software/Files Needed:

• Creative Wizard v 0.8.6.0
• Creative Wizard v 0.8.5.1 (at this point, you’ll still need both)
  
• Free: Paint.NET, the GIMP, or (Commercial) Adobe Photoshop
• A .bin file for the Zen X-Fi

First, download and install for all of those files above, and save the .bin file to a folder which it will be easily accessed. Be sure that Creative Wizard v 0.8.6.0 and v 0.8.5.1 are in different folders. You’ll probably want to create shortcuts to the desktop or similar.

Extract files from the bin

Finding the hjukebox file

Resulting window

First, open CreativeWizard 0.8.5.1, click Open firmware, and navigate to the bin file you downloaded a few moments ago. Click OK and you should get a tree navigation system show up in the white box. Expand the CIFF menu, then DATA menu. Click on the Hjukebox.grs, then click Edit. When a new dialog opens, click the Extract as .XML and select a folder location (suggestion: make a separate folder for it) and let it do its magic. What results should be a folder with six subfolders and a lot of images inside each. For reference in this guide, I extracted to Desktop/mytheme1.

Edit the image files

Go into those folders you just created (Desktop/mytheme1/COBRA_RESOURCE_THEME01), then select an image the you want to change. It’s fairly simple- edit only what you want changed, and the remainder of the firmware settings will remain the same.  Open it in your editor of choice. You’ll definitely need to zoom in to edit the image. Whilst editing, be sure to keep the image about the same dimensions and keep the background transparent. After all the edits are finished, save the file as the same name in the same location, as a .PNG file. You’ll want to overwrite the file. Do this for each file that you want changed. It’s tedious and a bit boring, but such is the way firmware design works.

Recompress the files

Go back to CreativeWizard 0.8.5.1 and close the file. Click convert XML to GRS. Navigate to the parent folder of your recently created folders and find a file named source.xml. In my reference example, it would be in Desktop/mytheme1. Click okay, then another dialog should open that wants to save the file as GRS. Save it as a GRS on your desktop. Now, go to CreativeWizard 0.8.6. Click Convert GRS to Firmware, save it somewhere, then select Creative Zen X-Fi as the type. With that, you now should have a .bin file saved somwhere on your computer.

Sending the file to your X-Fi

Connect the Zen X-Fi to your computer at this point. Open v0.8.5.1 and click Upload Firmware, select your player, and select the newly created bin file. Now, sit back and let the CreativeWizard do its magic. If you used this tutorial and created your own, it’s now the Velvet Red theme. Go to System-Display-Theme and change it to Velvet Red. That’s it!

If you’ve created a X-Fi theme and want it posted here, email me the .bin file at tony.cardone@techinhiding.com along with any images that you have of it. Some excellent sites for pre-made themes are epiZENter.net and pimpmyzen.com. Both sites are excellent resources if you need additional information on hacking your player.

The Creative Wizard was created by mcuelenaere

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